Conference Agenda

Ethnographic research and writing are often considered the work of lone academics, writing for their particular fields and academic journals. While this view of ethnographic research has been changing (Beach et al., 2018; Eisenhart, 2018; Hammersley & Atkinson, 2019) over the past few decades with growing popularity of participatory, critical, and collaborative approaches and technological advancements (Beneito-Montagut et al., 2017) for dissemination of knowledge on social media, blogs, newsletters, video, etc., most ethnographic data collection and analysis still occurs by one ethnographer. As ethnography expands across disciplines within academia and into the varied industries and organizations (e.g., EPIC, 2024), researchers and program leaders have begun exploring how to leverage different resources and people from varied backgrounds in generating ethnographic data and insights relevant to the multiple stakeholders. In this presentation we draw on two different projects across two countries and disciplinary fields to share the processes and contributions of collaborative construction of ethnographic data and insights.

The first project comes from an online Student Fellows program in the field of invention education. Three experienced ethnographers developed a six-week program for undergraduate students from varied disciplines to learn about and conduct an ethnographic study. The eight undergraduate students came from three different universities and disciplines of engineering, computer science, anthropology, communications, and political science. The eight undergraduate and one high school students became primary ethnographers who collected data in a two-week invention education summer workshop offered online for high school students in the U.S. and other countries. The online workshop was a collaboration by an invention-education program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a large biotechnology company with offices across the U.S. and internationally.

The Student Fellows program in which undergraduate students were introduced to ethnography through lectures and a hands-on-ethnographic study was co-designed by three experienced ethnographers representing two universities as well academic and service-organization perspectives. The service organization and its funder were the primary clients for the ethnographic report produced through the 6-week Student Fellows program. Data consisted of audiovisual recordings of the Student Fellows program meetings over the six weeks, the online course modules and student reflections and discussion posts in the learning management system, the final report produced for the client, as well as the data undergraduate student fellows generated by conducting participant observation and ethnographic interviewing during the two-week workshop for high school students.

The second project comes from a 4-year EU funded project conducted in Lithuania at the intersection of educational and health care research. Researchers from Education facilitated the project and included participants from health care organizations, higher education programs for healthcare, and people with disabilities and their caregivers across Lithuania. Driven by ethnographic goals, the project involved multiple data collection methods and researchers. Data generated included interviews and surveys with varied stakeholders in the healthcare and healthcare education system, observational data in education programs, and reports prepared by academic researchers for presentation and publication to Lithuanian and international audiences.

In ethnography, illuminating the experiences and perspectives of the researched is paramount. However, it is disconcerting to note that some voices are not represented or are only represented in certain disciplines. Seemingly leaving it to educational sciences (Albon/Huf 2021) ethnographic research with (young) children has been neglected by the scientific disciplines from which ethnography has evolved, namely Social and Cultural Anthropology (Hirschfeld 2002 a.o.)^[1], as well as Sociology (Alanen 2014 a. o.). With elucidating possible reasons behind this partial neglect, this proposal addresses the significance of future ethnographic research with young humans in the context of posthumanist approaches. Based on new materialist theorist Karen Barad (2007), I argue that a new theoretical perspective on ethnography, a focus on this demographic, but also a shift to the perception and impact of other neglected actors – such as more-than-humans (Taylor/Fairchild 2020) – is crucial. This proposal highlights the need for an inclusive and more entangled understanding of early childhood (Hamilton/Taylor 2017: 112) and early childhood ethnography. By exploring and reflecting on complexities and challenges of ethnographic research in entangled life(s), implying that “precarity is the condition of our time” (Tsing 2015: 20, emphasis in original), contemporary and future aspirations of ethnographic research are outlined to think differently about entanglements of human/nature/technology (Taylor/Hughes 2016) and the paradox of focusing more on young humans while at the same time decentring them theoretically and analytically (Pacini-Ketchabaw/Taylor/Blaise 2016).

When childhood as a social category is not considered as entangled becoming-with (Bollig 2020) it can manifest itself in an age range or discourse construction alienating young humans as humans who are not yet fully developed, no real humans yet. In this contribution, I argue that research on childhood can be conducted differently from research with children. Research on childhood usually means a top-down approach to young humans (and their lives) that turns actors into objects of research, often represented by their caregivers or legal representatives. Thus, a reason for the neglect of ethnographic research may be due to the perception of a cognitive and communicative incompetence of young humans. Underestimating their experiences and with that denying their significance, ethnographic researchers in Sociology, STS or Cultural Studies seemingly prioritize older age groups (e.g. Heath/Brooks/Cleaver/Ireland 2009) or, it seems, young humans are being researched “indirectly” by analysing artefacts of childhood, like toys, clothing, or literature/media (e.g. in German Cultural Studies: Weber-Kellermann 1979).

Nevertheless, by exploring and being with young humans in educational settings ethnographically, researchers gather valuable insights into lived experiences (e.g. Lareau 2011). Furthermore, from a new materialist perspective “deep hanging out” (Geertz 1998) means deep entanglement. Ethnography in the context of Agential Realism indicates the researcher as an agential part of the research process, which presupposes that there is no objectivity and no observer “from outside”. Consequently, this is opposed to research about young humans, about objects of research – but, on the contrary, means research with young humans: Research with and within humans and more-than-humans, as it is all entangled-with, also the researcher him- or herself, to “further learn them and ourselves in action” (Tsing 2013: 34, emphasis in original).

Regarding current uncertainties and future challenges in educational contexts, another vital but neglected perspective comes into focus: The entanglement of humans and more-than-humans. Advances in technology do already and will further impact ethnographic research, e.g. by altering communication or data collection. Moreover, it will also change how researchers “think ethnography”: Posthumanist approaches question what “being human” means.

^{[1] With exceptions: Lancy, D. F. (2022). The Anthropology of Childhood. Cherubs, Chattel, Changelings (3rd ed.), Cambridge University Press; Mead, M. (1931). Growing up in New Guinea. London Routledge.}

This contribution builds on a year-long ethnographic fieldwork in a 6^th turned 7^th grade class in inland Norway between January and December of 2020. The study was conducted for my PhD-project about Boys’ identity formation at school and in the classroom which has a focus on gender, social class, and identity. The research question for the contribution at hand is How is pupils’ presentation of identity at the school dance shaped by gender norms and the school's gendered practices? In a time when gender identity and gender diversity is widely discussed and focused on, understanding how pupils display their identity within and beyond gender norms in a special school setting is of interest. Identity presentations are not created by themselves in a vacuum but in an interplay between pupils, between pupils and teachers, and between the school as an institution and the people who occupy it. Understanding what room is (or is not) created for alternative, hybrid, or ambivalent gender expressions both within and outside the gender binary can therefore tell us something about how the discourse on gender diversity might develop going forward, and how society will face it in the future.

In this contribution, I will discuss gendered norms and practices at school by looking at a special event, namely, the school dance. This is because the norms found in daily life are not necessarily different from those observed in special events, but they can be exaggerated and more visible in the latter setting. By looking at concrete empirical examples of gendered practices and norms made visible I will discuss what room pupils have to express their gender identities, how different forms of masculinity and femininity are expressed, and what this can tell us about gender discourse in the 2020’s. To discuss this topic, I will use a few different theoretical lenses. As a foundation, I will look at the school dance through Judith Butler’s perspective on the term heteronormativity, and analyze how pupils, through the gendered practices of the school dance, are constituted as gendered bodies in a binary relation to each other (2004, p.159). I will also argue that Butler’s description of heteronormativity as a “discursive constructions nowhere accounted for but everywhere assumed…” (2006, p.58) still holds true in the school context. Furthermore, I will use Marshall Sahlins’ theory about the relationship between social structures and events, and how the latter can lead to change in the former. In the context of gender norms and performance, the theory is relevant since Sahlins tells us that “An event becomes a symbolic relation” (1976, p.21), meaning that the content of the event, whatever it might be, can be used as a symbolic reference of identity. Thus, the event (the school dance) can be utilized to either confirm or break with norms and become a reference for the future.

Phenomena like truancy (Reid, 2014; Lever, 2011; McCormack 2005), indicate that education is not understood as being inherently good by every student. Consequently, within an Inclusive Education perspective, the development of more welcoming educational practices becomes crucial. In addition, a basic underpinning of the evolving field of Disability Studies in Education, is that understandings of the experiences of education for people undergoing oppression is central, both for developing critiques of the ableist structures in educational settings, as well as suggestions of how education might be otherwise (Slee, Corcoran & Best, 2021). With students as active participants, this study set out to address the phenomenon of truancy, by giving voice to a doubly marginalised group of participants, i.e. girls at a Greek-Cypriot VET school.

The research followed a qualitative, ethnographic approach. The site was the VET school where I was working as a Physics teacher. Fieldwork gradually converged to a class of ten girls, whom I shadowed throughout the three years of their upper secondary studies. Research questions involved the girls’ school experiences, patterns of resistance, factors triggering truancy and their calculation of the costs and benefits of their decision to stay out of class/school.

Findings indicate that attributing truancy to endogenous problems of the student is insufficient; the school’s culture was such that it worked as a mechanism that used truancy to ensure its survival. This is an aspect which points to an unhealthiness and anti-romanticisation of education. A culture of exchanging commodities was revealed, which bears comparison to economic notions. More specifically, negotiating over their absences was for the girls a cost and benefit calculation, since leniency over excess absences was a desirable trade-off for choosing a specific vocational study area, even if that was not the one they were interested in to begin with. This seems to have been a defining aspect in triggering feelings of meaninglessness over education, which was in turn one of the triggers of truancy. The collateral damages seemed to be massive with regard to the girls’ understanding of the purpose of education, the perpetuation of negative VET reputation and the reproduction of their vocational identities.

The idea of the ‘virtual handbag’ has been used to bring together the concepts and ideas which synthesise the thesis of this PhD dissertation; the girls carried in their virtual handbags and utilised resources given to them in order to shape their own actions, but these resources were often unhealthy. In line with the underpinnings of the theoretical framework of Social Exchange Theory, the girls’ subsequent interchange of the resources given to them was equally unhealthy, not always as a form of resistance, but as an eager reciprocation of the commodities been given to them. This was a dangerous and now perhaps a newly discussed form of pyrrhic victory, when compared to the notion as raised by Willis (1977/1981); the girls were particularly creative agents through their cost and benefit calculations and believed that they were in a win-win situation, but what they managed to do instead, was to reproduce social structures.

Despite the gloomy picture, the aforementioned findings are an indication of the importance of longer lasting ethnographic research undertaken by teachers-researchers, as a method of delving into the underpinnings of students’ identity formation. In this process, teacher training is vital. Finally, further focusing on students’ voice, especially of marginalised groups, is proposed to be a powerful future research step for the development of more inclusive understandings and interventions to truancy; I hold that the above are crucial issues to be discussed in depth within international conferences.

Our workshop explores how ethnographic research can relate to emotions and atmospheres in education (Zembylas & Schutz 2016; Jeffrey 2018; Schoerer & Schmitt 2018). We engage in emotions and atmospheres grounded in some long-standing debates on cultural politics (Ahmed 2004) and the management of emotions (Hochschild 2012), the situatedness of educational knowledge (Haraway 1988) and a growing interest in the affective constitution of social relations (Reckwitz 2015; Slaby & Scheve 2019). Departing from this grounding, we find that doing ethnographies on emotions and atmospheres is linked to some theoretical and methodological questions on which we want to center our workshop.

Here, one key element is to explore the relationships between the bodies of researchers and participants, their respective social positioning, as well as the audience of ethnographically produced knowledge. Emotions and atmospheres challenge us with the question of how we can document them, and equally, how we can make sense of, as well as articulate, their elusive and overwhelming quality on individuals and groups. While emotions and atmospheres remain widely fluid, diffuse, and ambivalent, they also link to issues of power and vulnerability that can have long-lasting effects on collaborating in classrooms and other, non-formal educational settings (Zembylas 2020). In this respect, our attention to emotions and atmospheres points towards key questions in educational ethnography as a method, discipline, and research attitude in the sense of a historically embedded rethinking. In our workshop, we share and discuss our theoretical and methodological engagement in doing educational ethnography that attends to emotions and atmospheres. After an introduction to the relationship between ethnography and emotions and atmospheres, we present three different materials that reflect emotions and atmospheres in education that we subsequently want to discuss together with you.

Observation as a research method is useful when collecting data about teaching and learning. Classroom observation as a method can be defined as watching with a specific focus, where the researcher attempts to reflect on and understand the situation at hand. There are different observation methods, ranging from note taking (field notes), structured observation, and video observation. Wragg (2011) argues that observation is well-suited when we want to describe different learning situations and activities that take place in school and kindergarten. While observation as a method is well-suited to answer the “hows, whys and what fors” about learning and teaching, there are several concerns with regards to observation as a method for understanding classrooms.

First, in classroom observations, the choice of what the researcher zooms in on can be overwhelming (Jordan & Henderson, 1995). Consequently, an issue that can come up is that of “pre-analysis” (Jordan & Henderson, 1995) or pre-selection (Zuengler et al., 1998). In using a video camera for observation purposes, this may lead to what Zuengler and colleagues (1998) describe as camera or analyst eyes. One way of circumventing this is through having multiple cameras, thereby allowing for a broader data collection. On the other hand, video data is in itself rich, and having several cameras can result in collecting data for the sake of collecting data, which can be viewed as unethical (Blikstad-Balas, 2017). As such the discussion rests on whether the loss of detail can be balanced with drawing on broader observation data.

Secondly, an issue that needs to be addressed is that of intrusiveness and inhibition (Mifsud, 2012). Questions that need to be raised are whether the presence of the researcher acts as a behaviour inhibitor, thus diluting the data. As such, observation studies can never be free from the presence of the observer as long as they are within the classroom (Silverman, 2001).

Thirdly, the researcher comes encumbered with their own understanding of teaching and learning, both from their role as researcher as well as from previous experience in the classroom. This in turn might lead to several challenges, such as researcher bias. However, first-hand knowledge of the classroom does not automatically mean that the etic (objective/outsider account) - emic (subjective/insider account) is no longer valid. An issue that can be raised is therefore whether researchers avoid relying solely on observation data (Gall et al., 2007).

This leads to our final concern, namely that of replicability and generalisability have been issues that have been debated with regards to classroom observations (Cohen et al., 2018; Dalland et al., 2023) The use of videos was often hailed as a way of dealing with issues of replicability and generalisation, as videos enable the viewing and reviewing of data (Derry et al., 2010). However, as Zuengler and colleagues (1998) points out, using videos in data collection does not necessarily counterbalance issues of pre-analysing the classroom situation. As such, there is the need to address these challenges and discuss different methods for working around these issues. While seminal works (for example Derry et al., 2010, have over 1500 citations) raise several issues regarding classroom observation, these are mainly over 20 years old, and the classrooms of today are not the same as classrooms were two decades ago, and many classrooms also have a myriad of tools that are used by pupils and teachers. Therefore, there is the need to revisit these issues. This paper raises the following questions:

• What possibilities and challenges arise in classroom observations?
• What are the implications of different techniques of classroom observations?

A vital component in the functioning of an educational organisation has been of particular interest to researchers worldwide seeking to define and investigate it in more detail. Individual components and definitions related to organizational culture have been extensively discussed for years. Despite the great interest in this phenomenon, school culture and its particular constituent has not yet been fully explored, let alone in the light of systems thinking.

In this paper I attempt by approaching the phenomenon in the light of Niklas Luhmann's theory, to highlight the factors that make it a complex, multidimensional emergent phenomenon as well as its dimensions, so as to further understand the strong relationships between them. In particular, I attempt to develop a qualitative ethnographic way of investigating the phenomenon in the light of Luhmannian theory, thus helping to explore the phenomenon, to evaluate it and subsequently to develop a resilient school culture as a process of complex organisational transition and systemic change. Therefore, the results of the study will be presented regarding one of the three factors influencing the formation of the emerging phenomenon.

Having in mind the importance of the decision premises, the decision – making conditions allow the double monitoring of decision – making processes at the level of observable behaviour and its products, and at the level of the conditions, which are potentially the cause of undesirable outcomes. They amplify intra – system uncertainties and put them in a form that can be further processed in the system.

According to Luhmann, these decisions create conditions for an infinite number of other decisions (Luhmann, 2018). Therefore, they create preconditions for future decisions and could be called meta-decisions, as they influence other decisions. Following Luhmann's idea, three dimensions of decision premises can be distinguished that need to be taken into account in organizational theory (Luhmann, 2018, p. 222)

- Programs

- Structures/procedures,

- Personnel

The highly complex nature of the phenomenon dictates the need to explore it in depth and to record both quantitative and qualitative data in the context in which the school culture is developed. Its specificity as unique to each school unit suggests the need for the direct involvement of the researcher and the investigation of the developments taking place within the system. An ethnographic research methodological approach is required to understand the goals, challenges, motivations and factors that fuel and contribute to its development. In ethnography, the researcher becomes a participatory member in the participants' environment in order to understand the goals, cultures, and challenges that emerge.

Swedish ‘first teachers’ interpretation of their assignments at a school with challenges

This paper describes parts of my ongoing PhD dissertation work where I study the policy enactment of the Swedish ‘first teacher’ (‘förstelärare’) reform in practice. The first teacher reform (Prop. 2012/13:136) completed ten years as a reform initiative in 2023. The purpose of the reform is to make the teaching profession more attractive and ensure good teaching for students. In the last two decades, a range of policy initiatives designed to establish new teacher roles. These new ‘expert’ teachers are called förstelärare in Sweden, lærerspesialist in Norway and tutoropettajat in Finland (Grimm, 2023; Lorentzen, 2021; Utbildningsstyrelsen, 2020). Despite great interest of these ‘expert’ teachers in Nordic countries, the research about these roles is still in the making. In a review of previous research, there are few relevant studies that explore what they do in their everyday school practice, specifically in schools with special challenges.

The aim of the paper is to explore how five selected first teachers at a primary school in Sweden interpret their assignment and how they describe their everyday work at school.

As a theoretical frame, I use Bernstein's (2000) discourse analytical concepts of classification and framing, as well as recognition- and realization rules.

New PISA results show that educational inequality in Europe is prevalent as many countries score below average in socio economic fairness and/or inclusion in core subjects as compared to other OECD countries (OECD 2023). In striving for more educational equity, it is paramount to understand conditions within educational arrangements that enable or impede participation for marginalised youth.

In accordance with the German tradition of “Bildung”, education is understood as a transformation of self-world-relations (Jörissen/Marotzki 2009). Digital media have become essential for self-world-relations, as they have created new options for participation as well as new requirements and obstacles for orientation (ibid.). According to this understanding, although formal education is often prioritised within public and academic discourse, non-formal (as well as informal) education is increasingly essential in the acquisition of relevant skills in a digitalised society (Spanhel 2020).

The term “non-formal” is used to describe organised educational arrangements outside of formal education (e.g. afterschool activities, sports clubs, youth clubs or school holiday activities; Rohlfs 2011). In Germany, non-formal educational institutions often aim at targeting marginalised youth, for example by residing in ‘deprived’ urban areas, potentially creating opportunities to reduce educational inequalities among youth. In arrangements that recognise their disadvantaged target groups’ realities and enable participation, trust and respect are considered important factors in reducing inequality (Fujii et al. 2021; Streicher et al. 2014; Walther 2014).

Some non-formal educational arrangements deal with the usage of digital media, such as coding, robotics, 3D-printing or photography (henceforth referred to as “non-formal digitalised educational arrangements”) and claim to be relevant for ‘Bildung’ in a digitised society. On the one hand, this potentially decreases educational inequalities among youth by enabling transformations of self-world-relations through learning and the experience of self-efficacy in relation to digital media. On the other hand, inequalities may be reproduced within these arrangements, if e.g. specific media practices are delegitimised. In this case, structures of educational arrangements may (unintentionally) exclude marginalised youth (Fujii et al. 2021; Kutscher/Farrenberg 2017; Schäfer/Lojewski 2007). The question emerges, whether non-formal digitalised educational arrangements succeed at enabling educational participation. Moreover, it remains to be examined whether and under which conditions those institutions are actually successful in including marginalised youth (Dawson 2014).

The joint research project “DILABoration”, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research, aims at analysing conditions under which opportunities for participation and transformation of self-world-relations are enabled or impeded within non-formal educational arrangements, specifically regarding marginalised youth.

Most arrangements considered in this research are organised independently by non-formal institutions, offered free of charge, take place in the institutions’ premises and do not aim at any formal qualification. However, some arrangements are implemented as collaborations between schools and non-formal educational institutions (e.g. extracurricular activities). These arrangements challenge the distinction between “non-formal” and “formal” educational contexts (Gosse 2020).

This leads to the question how potentials of non-formal digitalised educational arrangements unfold in arrangements involving schools as opposed to arrangements not involving schools. This paper will therefore compare both kinds of arrangements with regard to participation of marginalised youth.

“DILABoration” fits in with the ECER’s 2024 theme “Education in an Age of Uncertainty” as, on one hand, ‘Bildung’ in relation to digitality is characterised by contingencies while, on the other hand, it may enable subjects to confront and adapt to the new and unknown (Marotzki/Jörissen 2009). Consequently, the conditions of non-formal educational arrangements that enable youth to appropriate (media) practices apart from predefined skills and competences need to be researched.

This paper is part of the project "Discretionary spaces and practices of recontextualization of curriculum objectives across three cases", funded by the German Research Foundation (Jablonka & Gellert, 2022). The focus is on mathematics education in 3^rd-5^thgrade elementary and 8^th-9^th grade secondary school, located in both, deprived and affluent contexts. The project is underpinned by sociological theories, which attend to the discursive and non-discursive relations that constitute the social construction of school mathematics and its (pathological) side effects (Straehler-Pohl & Gellert, 2015). The paper refers to data from 9^th grade of an affluent school in Berlin. Our ethnographic approach aims to uncover potentials for critique and transformational change (Beach & Vigo-Arrazola, 2021).

The choice of the school subject mathematics in the project is motivated by its core position in curricula worldwide. ‘Unsatisfactory’ results in the mathematics achievement tests of the OECD’s PISA in many countries have led to far-reaching reforms, such as standardization, performance measurement, and curriculum related programs (Budde, 2013; Jablonka, 2007). The shift to an evidence-based paradigm, in which output management becomes the dominant policy strategy, has had decisive impact on the respective education systems: the functional/technocratic focus on education prevails and (external) evaluation practices influence educational decision-making processes (teaching for the test), as instruction strategies need to be adapted (Brinkmann, 2016; Meyer & Zehadi, 2014; Gellert et al., 2013). Such curriculum adaptations might unintentionally mitigate or reinforce unequal access to mathematical knowledge: on the one hand, to the generative principles and styles of mathematical reasoning that underpin disciplinary knowledge, and on the other, to more skill-based reproducible forms (e.g. Dowling, 1996; Jablonka & Gellert, 2012). In this context, the overall goal of the project is to explore how curricular choices are made, which contingencies/variations of shared curriculum objectives are realized, and to what extent teachers perceive curricular freedom/restriction. In this paper, we approach these questions by means of an investigation of classroom practice and the teachers’ discursive reflections.

Theoretical Horizon

– Habitus and Subjectification: Bourdieu’s notion of ‘habitus’ (1977) is useful to comprehend the interrelations of schooling, power, and positionings in the social field. Especially the concept of ‘disposition’, which involves both, structure and agency, plays an eminent role in terms of accumulated/accumulating symbolic capital. Dispositions influence the perception of oneself and others as well as practices of distinction.

Foucault’s ‘dispositive’ (1979) provides an elucidating conception to discover the relationality between discourses and non-discursive practices, contributing to an understanding of organizational/institutional dynamics, power and their spatial-temporal changes. It also discloses contradictions, disruptions, and interferences in the process of subjectification, which potentially unfold transformative power.

– Curriculum Recontextualization: State-mandated curricula are intended to control the recontextualization of curriculum objectives by schools and teachers for the transfer of ‘valuable’ knowledge and skills (Bernstein, 2000; Dowling, 1996, 2014). Whereas Bernstein’s approach focuses on rules by which recontextualization is regulated, such as classification (between contexts), framing (within contexts), and pedagogical device (transmission rules), among others, Dowling provides a scheme of discourse domains (esoteric, public, descriptive, expressive) by which mathematical texts and settings can be described in relation to knowledge distribution. He reveals significant distinctions regarding these domains of different mathematical discourses and practices, realized in institutionalized pedagogic settings with reference to assumed (future) social positions of students.

Based on these theoretical considerations, the analysis presented in this paper aims to shed light on curriculum realizations in classroom practice and the teachers’ discursive reflections through an analysis of data from a STEM and a non-STEM course, in order to unpack variations of shared curriculum objectives and related teachers’ perceptions.

Photovoice is a particular approach to research that emerged in the 1990s in response to wider developments within qualitative research. Researchers more formally recognised the power they held in the relationship to their participants and began to feel uncomfortable about the researcher-researched hierarchy. As a result, trends moved towards participatory and creative approaches to minimise these hierarchies, to reduce the power differentials between participants and researchers, and to equalise the responsibility amongst the stakeholders within the research (e.g. Wang and Burris, 1994, 1997). In addition, smartphones, tablets, or action cameras have eased availability of and accessibility to relatively cheap and simple means for recording through photography. Where once detailed knowledge of the photographic process may have been required to enable individuals to capture meaningful information and data, editing apps and software further facilitate the development of photography. As a result, research projects employing photographs became more prominent (e.g. Blinn and Harrist, 1991; Schwartz, 1989; Niessen, 1991).

A quick search on Google Scholar for the key terms "photovoice" and "photo elicitation" demonstrates just how significant that change has been. Articles relating to "photo elicitation" nearly octupled between the 1990s and the 2010s, whereas articles relating to "photovoice" multiplied by 120. The popularity of research studies using photography as an approach to gathering data is undisputable. However, the terminologies and conceptualisations are not always entirely clear.

Whilst photovoice and photo elicitation initially were two quite distinct approaches to research in the social sciences, the boundaries are more blurred nowadays. In part, this is due to researchers designing projects to suit their specific target communities and target participants, and so adjusting elements of a research method. In part, this is also due to developments that rendered photovoice and photo elicitation a kind of diary method with communities that would otherwise be difficult to reach. The social distancing rules that were put in place during the COVID19 pandemic exacerbated this trend of using photographs as a form of remote data collection. As the approaches along with the terminology have varied over time, many visual methods or forms of visual inquiry have also been used to describe what others define as "photovoice" or "photo elicitation". To untangle this web, I have reframed photovoice and photo elicitation as Photovoice as a framework and Photovoice as a method (Brown, 2024).

For this interactive workshop I propose to offer an introductory session on how Photovoice may be used as a framework and as a method. I will begin by outlining the main principles of photovoice in its original intention and sketching out how photovoice research has developed since. For the workshop activities, I will have images available that will enable attendees to experiment with aspects of photovoice research from data collection to analysis through to dissemination. Throughout the session, I will highlight ethical, methodological, and practical opportunities and challenges when using photovoice as a framework or as a method.

This proposal is part of an Educational Doctorate (EdD) that explores the roll of the small rural school in it’s community. Corbett (2015) states that rural schools are embedded in communities and potentially integrated within the community and often the heart of rural communities. The particular focus of the study is to better understand the impact of national education policy in Scotland on these schools. How do these schools interact with national policy and how does national policy reflect the needs of these schools? Barret et al (2015) suggests that rural schools remain under-examined relative to their suburban and urban counterparts in relations to such outcomes.

Within an age of uncertainty education policy and practice within rural schools is complex. The study investigates the views and practices of national policy makers, local authority policy makers, headteachers of small rural schools and fieldwork from a very small remote rural school. Reid (2017) argues that education policymakers and practitioners must understand their place in a much larger and interconnected manner in relation to social, economic, and environmental influences.

I came to this research as an educationalist with more than 40 years’ experience in the field and having been in the unique position of having lived experience of all of roles being researched. I was aware that whilst this brought extensive knowledge there were also restrictions in relation to the prejudices this could bring as no researcher is neutral (Janesick, 2000; Lincoln &Denzin 2000). I wanted to use my experience, memories, and skills in the rural education field to bring greater understanding and hope for the future to the role of small rural schools. The intersections of the place, my personal views and career are relevant in the field (Gupta and Ferguson 1997).

My supervisor was instrumental in guiding me to the understanding that my unique position brought a new lens to explore rural education. I was introduced to auto ethnography as a research methodology. By turning the mirror on myself I became aware of the uniqueness I brought as a researcher. Portraiture a form of ethnographic research draws on data to paint a rich picture in words of community and/or place (Lawrence – Lightfoot and Davis 1997)

The research has incorporated ethnography, auto ethnography and portraiture, as an approach to narrative inquiry. I propose to share the complexity of utilising these tools to build research which captures a wealth of knowledge and experience creating memories from which others can benefit and bring hope for the future. We live through times of uncertainty for rural schools but also times to create a vision for these rural schools as unique and valuable contributors to education.

The journey through EdD has led me to develop autoethnography, narrative inquiry and portraiture to capture rich data of rural school leadership of policy. My personal journey has impacted “on the research question, how the research was conceptualised, and the importance ascribed to research problems” (Bartholomaeus et al p58). Human actions can be explained if the researcher understands the culture in which the action takes place (Rosen1991).

In many European countries and regions, educational contexts and their institutions are confronted with spreading populism and “the growing strength of far-right parties” (Havlík & Mareš 2020: 257, Strijker et al. 2015). The effects of these political and social shifts on education have so far played merely a subordinate role in educational research. In particular, far-right orientations and discourses seem to rely on dynamics of place. In the past, especially rural regions have already been symptomatic and symbolic of the challenges of an integrative democratic educational system (Simon 2020, Corbett 2015). But “the rural is a notoriously difficult concept to define” (Roberts & Fuqua 2021: 2, Woods 2011) and embedded in tensions and contradictions. In this context, it is worth remembering how Adorno (1966/1970) addresses the problematic processes of education and democratization by speaking of a ‘cultural difference between urban and rural contexts’ (ibid., 3). Although he distances himself from arrogance towards the rural population, he identifies a ‘state of not quite having caught up with the culture’ (ibid.) and speaks of the ‘debarbarization of the rural as one of the most important educational goals’ (ibid.). In the current discourse, such categorizations are regarded as attributions that tend to create and stabilize dichotomies and differentiations (Berg & Üblacker 2020). Hence, recent studies focus on economic and cultural insecurity (Havlík & Mareš 2020: 259), which is believed to result from “population decline, ageing population, changing ethnic and cultural compositions, poor access to health care, economic hardship and decline” (Roberts & Fuqua 2021: 3) and fewer opportunities for participation in educational programs (Büdel & Kolleck 2023). It is often assumed that this causes sentiments of being left behind and erodes the trust in democratic societies and their promises of participation for all. Subsequently educational offers and programs try to adapt to the specific needs of rural areas in order to re-establish security and appreciation (Fargas-Malet & Bagley 2022). However, these efforts – as Adorno’s approach – often neglect that modern ideas of education and democratization are also part of hegemonic constructions (Laclau & Mouffe 2020), and that the stabilization and expansion of modernity and its institutions are therefore part of a special hegemonic order (Bender, Flügel-Martinsen & Vogt 2023). Nevertheless, this proposal does not intend to abandon these orientations and values of contemporary democratic societies. However, it presumes that educational research may not adequately reflect the political and social developments at the interfaces between the familiar and the foreign, particularly in relation to rural regions. This situation may even deepen conflicts and uncertainties when it comes to concrete pedagogical reactions.

The article presents research results from an ethnographic photo-documentary study which is part of the joint project PaKKT (Bender et al. 2019) funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, 2019-2022) in Germany. The article thus pursues two objectives. The first methodological objective questions whether photo-ethnographic studies can be used to determine the specific field structure of rural regions. Is it possible – despite the non-existent spatial boundaries and the relationality of place – to work out the rules and influences of the field? The second objective is to analyze a specific social field, characterized by a strong and ongoing far-right and populist orientation: How does this social field relate to a culture of uncertainty and the pedagogical and educational approaches?

Overall, this paper offers a discussion of the connection between uncertainty and hegemonic conflicts, which is important for the understanding and development of educational research and pedagogical practices in rural regions in a changing Europe.

After a major revision of its age of consent law in 1990, Uganda’s defilement law became one of the most radical laws of this kind in the world. Defilement was redefined as sexual acts involving a person below 18 and was reclassified as a capital offence. Celebrated by women’s rights activists, the new law was supposed to prevent early marriage with a view to avoid unsafe sex practices that put girls at a greater risks of sexually transmitted diseases and pre-mature educational drop-out.

In this paper I explore how people in Bunyafa, a rural area in eastern Uganda, have reintrepeted 'defilement' after the 1990 revision, how they resolve defilement cases locally, and what that means for the educational careers of young men and women. I aim to demonstrate that people redefined ‘defilement’ locally by looking at a girls’ education rather than age and that defilement cases were handled pragmatically, through the payment of a fine. These dynamics have become something of the everyday in Bunyafa and are anticipated by some families who aim to earn a fine through marrying of daughers while in school.

The paper starts with an analysis of marriage changes in the area and local perceptions of the female body, which helps to understand why education has become such a focal point in local defilement cases, why these cases are handled pragmatically, through fines, and why this practice goes uncontested. Through case studies and survey data, the paper then provides an insight into local ways of handling defilement, demonstrating both how such cases unfold and how common they are. The final part of the paper is devoted to exploring some of the consequences of this for the education of young men and women, and patriarchal norms in society.

The insights build on, and contribute to, two theoretical perspectives. Firstly, building on a body of literature associated with the 'new literacy' studies of Brian Street (2001; 1993; 1995; 1984), I demonstrate how education is not only about the obtainment of particular skills, but is also a practice embedded in hegemonic power structures. The consequences of education are shaped, among other things, by the way in which educational activities are reworked in relation to these power stuctures (Street 1995) and how different actors, particularly powerful ones (men in eastern Uganda), manipulate the meaning of education to reinforce their position within these structures (Bledsoe and Robey 1993 Maurice Bloch 1993). I develop the concept of 'schoolwork' (cf. Jones 2022) to draw attention to these practices, reinpretations and manipulations, demonstrating how appreciating 'schoolwork' is crucial for understanding the consequences of education.

Secondly, my research furthers understanding of the relationship between education and early marriage. I demonstrate how local ways of defining and handling 'defilement' reinforces the idea that education and marriage are two alternatives, meaning that a girl out of school is almost immideately considered marriageable. This hampers the possible effect of what Lindstrom et al. (2009, 46) call the human capital and the social dislocation theories. Both these theories suggest that schooling may lead girls to take more time before they get married after they leave school, because of increased possibilities to earn money (human capital theory) and greater knowledge of, and confidence to seek, alternative pathways into adulthood (social dislocation theory).

Drug addict juvenile offenders are a particular group of young people in educational systems, especially for the actions taken in the social rehabilitation facilities. Managing minors educational resistance is the special aim of the work with youth. Their attitude toward education is shaped by the environmental habitus: poor resources, troubles and conflicts with local social service, masculinist toughness in relations or looking for excitements in everyday relations (Willis, 1997). Due to the specific nature of the 'minor' youth group, the educational process is complex. This results from their sociocultural experiences, shaped by socialization in the area of the underclass: origin from poor backgrounds and inheritance of a para criminal habitus leading to social exclusion.

An additional educational challenge is the traumatic experiences of minors staying in social rehabilitation (total) institutions. Experiencing detention, the use of sanctions by the staff or para prison model of organization of the treatments in many countries cause youth from such institutions to have a sense of social exclusion and injustice. The research took into account in particular the social justice context specific to the research area, which is an ethnoreligious monolith and the source of social inequalities is primarily socioeconomic status (residence in the countryside or poor districts, inheritance of poverty, instability of employment and housing conditions) (Szafraniec, 2015).

As a result, minors' educational strategies place them in sociocultural resistance, denial of education, and inclusive practices. The attitudes presented by minors, therefore, constitute a particular educational challenge in the spirit of social justice, which is intended not only to minimize risk factors (resulting in future reoffending) but, above all, to implement solutions for social justice: a sense of equality rights, minimizing the effects of discrimination based on origin, equal opportunities, but also respect for their rights and those of others. Social justice perceived in this way (following the Convention of the Rights of Child , UN Sustainable Developmental Goals or Tokyo Rules) aims at readaptation and reintegration with the open environment (society), minimizing the risk of exclusion and marginalization, which are carried out in conditions of detention resulting in limited contact with the open environment.

The research is part of the ethnographic study of youth detention institutions according to M. Interbitzin proposal (2006). The author studied the location and appearance of the facility and dealt with the description of everyday life from the perspective of minors and staff, as well as the specificity of the relationship between them. She also paid attention to the readaptation process, analyzing the return of pupils to the open environment. In the presented project, an in-depth study of place and everyday life by this approach additionally aimed to analyze the journey of a minor in an institution from the first days of isolation to reentry, with particular emphasis on educational practices and activities to build a sense of social justice.

The field research aimed to learn, through the methods of institutional ethnography Nichols, (2017), how relationships are shaped between minors and staff, enabling their inclusive presence in the social space.

We included the research problem in the question: How are educational practices implemented in a juvenile detention institution (taking into account the assumptions of social justice)? A detention centre for minors is a place that has been stigmatized in the social and educational discourse, where educational and therapeutic interactions with minors are carried out in conditions of isolation. A paradoxical problem is working with minors in conditions of isolation, i.e. power relations, which is aimed at their social inclusion.

Our world has changed dramatically. We collectively experienced the COVID 19 pandemic, which drastically changed our lives and seriously impacted social, health and economic issues. Simultaneously, western lifestyle and the globalized economy cause massive environmental pollution and create climate change that threatens life on our planet. At the same time as we destroy the basis for human survival, we witness the erosion of established conventions for peace in Europe, as Putin’s regime carries out massive war crimes, cruelly killing innocent Ukrainians, and threating the world with nuclear war. Likewise, the reemergence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict threatens stability across the Middle East and there is no end in sight. The current man-made catastrophes have in common that they unfold unprecedented destructive power, which shake the social structures of our communal coexistence (Heinlein & Dimbath 2020). This results in comprehensive social upheavals, social shifts, and dislocations, which leads us to fundamentally question our sense of integrity and trust in the security and continuity of our lifeworld. The social fragility and vulnerability of our everyday life circumstances require coping strategies to deal with crises, the occurring unpredictability, and increased contingency of our future horizons. What are the consequences of increased contingency for us as individuals and as members of a global community? We have to deal with potential risks of man-made disasters and consequent destruction as an expression of a future which cannot be controlled in full, and have to accept disasters as a constitutive part of our living conditions. Such conditions require us to develop social and biographical resilience in order to handle both known unknowns and unknown unknowns of our future horizons and develop our ability to attend to upcoming challenges of humanity (Bröckling 2008).

This paper explores social responses to man-made disaster, with a specific focus on the Russian military invasion into Ukrainian territory, and the threat of a nuclear war. The exploration aims to highlight different strategies of dealing with the emotions of complete bewilderment, powerlessness, sadness and anger in view of war and tragedy in Ukraine. In particular, the analysis focuses on tweets and interactions of different hashtag and thread discussions on the online platform X (former Twitter) which are related to the Russian full-scale invasion. The comparative analysis of these online discussions explores social interaction and exchange of opinions, created images and expressed feelings, as well as strategies to overcome bewilderment and powerlessness in order to gain agency. Furthermore, the analysis is accompanied by an auto-ethnographic perspective, where the critical reflection and analysis of my online experiences as a researcher are at the center. In general terms we can say that social media and other internet-based platforms are intertwined with our political life and the formation of opinions. They play an important role in allowing people to design, consume and share information and news. But at the same time social platforms and new media are increasingly perceived as conducive to the creation of ideological “echo-chambers” eroding the space for public dialogue. Hence, they are seen as fostering polarisation, radicalisation, de-politicisation, spreading misinformation and subject to manipulation. Having this in mind the exploration pays specific attention to the formation of opinions, the development of critical media literacy and the related dynamics of social interaction.

We are using this workshop as an exchange format, drawing on the successful interactive ethnographic speed dating from last year's network meeting in Glasgow. We meet, get to know participants in the network who are also conducting ethnographic research in one form or the other and exchange ideas about the how, why and what of doing ethnography in educational fields. Come and join us!

Networks hold a meeting during ECER. All interested are welcome.

Ethnography is traditionally seen as an approach to gaining knowledge of and about uncertain situations, as apparent in ethnographies of war, postwar or violence (Ellison 2021), illness (Jenkins et al. 2005), or migration (Fitzgerald 2006). Consequently, ethnography has developed strategies for methodic openness and for maintaining an explorative point of view to attend to uncertainties, grey zones, and ambiguity (Atkinson 2015). Similarly, education is inherently risky (Biesta, 2020), as all education is an open process of negotiating intentions and meaning that cannot be performed out of technical rationality. In this sense, the riskiness of education and ethnographic approaches to navigating uncertainty seems to be a good match. However, the methodological strength of ethnography to deal with uncertainty comes with some dangers, as it results in ethnographies taking quite different forms (Hammersley 2017). This panel discussion provides a space to enter a conversation about these different forms, and how they enable us to leave the methodological safe zone and embark on the uncertainties of educational ethnography.

As ethnographers have dealt with uncertainties for some time, we meet diverse local practices of dealing with uncertainty in ethnography, as well as a good number of ethnographic textbooks that provide us with frameworks for dealing with not-exactly-knowing-how. As Hammersley and Atkinson (2019) point out, reflexivity is one of these fundamental frameworks. Without reflecting upon the personal theoretical grounds on which we settle as researchers and our positionality in the field, our practical and methodical practices are prone to disable our “participant listening” (Forsey, 2010), flawing our awareness of the perspectives that we can meet in the field. Despite the healthy body of ethnographic literature on which we rely for our methodological choices, we can only find limited refuge in these when embarking on ethnographic adventures. These adventures themselves often lead us away from safe, established forms of doing ethnography, and into the “darkness” (Barker, 2020) of uncertainty in which we have to start finding our way. In times of change and uncertainty, the flexible and adaptable strategies of ethnography to develop situated awareness offer a lot to work with. This panel discussion is dedicated to reflecting on our ways of meeting and addressing uncertainties in ethnography, starting with some reflections from the network convenors, but ultimately aiming to give voice to your experiences to enable a conversation amongst all network participants.

Entering a conversation with all participants in the session, we want to exchange experiences of dealing with uncertainty and reflect on how it is enabled through the different ethnographic approaches that we are using: Ethnographies that engage in getting lost, in different types of communities, auto-ethnography, more-than-human ethnography, or new materialist ethnography. Ethnographies that engage with time, emotions, life histories, particular spaces, difficult knowledge, or with creating change. Together with you, we want to reflect on the different approaches to ethnography and how they enable us to deal with uncertainty. We want to invite everyone in the ethnography network to join this conversation and share your thoughts about dealing with uncertainty, aiming to foster exchange between everyone participating in the network, and providing an opportunity to get into conversation with colleagues.

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The term "poly-crisis" is currently about to become one of the most popular catchphrases used in the "political and social language" (Koselleck & Richter 2006) of our time. It pretends to characterize the current global situation in general and refers to the simultaneous occurrence of multiple crises and challenges in various domains, such as economy, environment, health, politics, and humanitarian issues. The British Historian Adam Tooze describes ‘polycrisis’ as the interaction of multiple crises and heterogenous shocks at once forming a "cascading and converging" set of challenges that have the potential to reshape our world in profound ways (Tooze, 2022). In this interpretation, the term does not merely signify the simultaneous occurrence of a series of singular critical events but rather serves as outstanding characteristic of present times and seemingly a novel phase in history. In this interpretation, it is not least the complexity of the phenomenon termed as ‘polycrisis’ which is particularly striking and generates the everyday experience that the associated events must be effective, but not entirely and immediately graspable.

The compelling reference to contemporary phenomena of crises has always been a key argumentative tool for justifying educational programs in history (Dollinger, 2021; Hemetsberger 2022; Wrana, Schmidt & Schreiber 2022). Not surprisingly, this is also evident in recent documents related to current issues of educational agenda setting issued by supranational organizations (see European Commission et al. 2023; OECD 2023; UNICEF Innocenti 2023). The same might be expected for the current development of local curricula in educational institutions.

At the moment, there is still limited knowledge about how the situation of ‘polycrisis’ is reflected on the local level of institutionalised education and everyday pedagogical practice (e.g. Ameli 2022). This applies not least to the question of how concrete representations of a world situation regarded as ‘polycritical’ can be investigated from a social science perspective in educational settings, especially in order to go beyond the simple affirmation of crisis diagnoses as dominating in public agenda setting discourses. And finally, the question arises: What is the special contribution of ethnographic research strategies in this context? The symposium addresses these issues by following several perspectives: Firstly, it clarifies from a historical and systematic point of view the interrelation between the justification of educational ambitions, visions or programs and crisis-ridden time diagnosis; secondly, it discusses methodological issues of investigating global phenomena of crises from the perspective of educational ethnography; and thirdly, it focuses on dealing with phenomena of crisis on the local level of educational institutions by referring to insights and findings from two different ethnographic research projects conducted in Germany and Switzerland. This ultimately leads to the overarching questions of the symposium: How can characteristics of the pedagogical processing of crisis phenomena be captured ethnographically? How do these phenomena manifest themselves in local practices and in connection with socio-material arrangements? And are there similarities/differences in the pedagogical processing of crises in different contexts and pedagogical settings, and if so, what are they?

Considered as the key characteristic of the current era, the narrative that the world has entered a state of polycrisis represents a crucial aspect of the contemporary public debates. This state is marked by the simultaneous occurrence of multiple individual crises, such as climate change, inflation, increasing social inequality, or migration. These crises overlap in time, amplifying each other and their entanglement seems to challenge human problem-solving abilities in unforeseeable ways (Tooze 2022). Regardless of this specific emphasis, the narrative of the poly-crisis exhibits characteristic features well-known from other forms of diagnosis of the times as it interprets the present in the light of a seemingly ‘predictable’ past and calls for immediate action (Alkemeyer et al. 2019). From a historical perspective, diagnoses of crisis have often been the basis for thinking about new forms of upbringing and education (e.g. Koenig 2019). This trend can be traced back at least as far as the Age of Enlightenment (Winandy & Hermetsberger 2020). In the context of the Western world, it can be observed that the societal reflection on states of crises regularly has included their pedagogisation (e.g. Dinkelaker 2023). This encompasses not only the use of diagnoses of crisis to justify new pedagogical programmes, but also the promise of being able to overcome the current state of crisis through suitable forms of education, learning and teaching. In other words: In times of crisis always sets the stage for rethinking pedagogy. As a result, the pedagogical discussion all too easily falls into an affirmative relationship with the prevailing crisis diagnoses, which makes a reflexive approach to them at least more difficult, if not impossible. Against this background, in our programmatically and methodologically oriented presentation we will discuss the narrative of polycrisis as a form of diagnosis of the times by problematising the implications which prepare the ground for subsequent processes of pedagogisation. Then, we will ask which contribution educational ethnography can make when it comes to the question of how to study the manifestations of the current polycrisis and its pedagogisation from an educational science perspective. In doing so, we will focus in particular on the potential of ethnography to analyse a multi-local state of crises at the level of local pedagogical practices. Not least we will address the challenges associated with the fact that scientific research and its institutions may themselves be affected by the impact of the global polycrisis (Morra 2021).

Alkemeyer, Thomas; Buschmann, Nikolaus; Etzemüller, Thomas (2019): Einleitung. Gegenwartsdiagnosen als kulturelle Formen gesellschaftlicher Selbstproblematisierung in der Moderne. In: Thomas Alkemeyer, Nikolaus Buschmann und Thomas Etzemüller (Hg.): Gegenwartsdiagnosen. Kulturelle Formen gesellschaftlicher Selbstproblematisierung in der Moderne. Bielefeld: transcript (Sozialtheorie), pp. 9–20. Dinkelaker, Jörg (2023): Krise als Schema der Pädagogisierung der ökologischen Frage. In: Malte Ebner von Eschenbach, Bernd Käpplinger, Maria Kondratjuk, Katrin Kraus, Matthias Rohs, Beatrix Niemeyer und Franziska Bellinger (Hg.): Re-Konstruktionen – Krisenthematisierungen in der Erwachsenenbildung. Opladen, Berlin, Toronto: Verlag Barbara Budrich, pp. 47–58. Koenig, Heike (2019): Enabling the Individual: Simmel, Dewey and “The Need for a Philosophy of Education”. In: Simmel Studies 23 (1), pp. 109–146. Morra, Francesca (2021): Towards an Ethnography of Crisis. The Investigation of Refugees’ Mental Distress. In: Anthropology in Action 28 (2), pp. 36–43. Tooze, Adam (2022): Welcome to the world of the polycrisis. Today disparate shocks interact so that the whole is worse than the sum of the parts. In: The Financial Times 2022, 28.10.2022. Online available https://www.ft.com/content/498398e7-11b1-494b-9cd3-6d669dc3de33, last ceck 31.01.2024. Winandy, Jil; Hemetsberger, Bernhard (2021): Ordering the mess: (re-)defining public schooling as a remedy. In: Paedagogica Historica 57 (6), pp. 717–727.

Approaches to materiality and "material culture" have a long tradition in ethnography. Systematically tracing theoretical traditions guiding ethnographic research and analysis, Tilley (2001) highlights the significance of "material culture" as an established and highly relevant object of ethnographic analysis. In our contribution, we first take up this systematization and update it with contemporary practice theoretical (Schatzki 2002, 2010), new-materialist (Tsing 2015), and post-humanist (Taylor 2013, Taylor & Pacini-Ketchabaw 2018) approaches. Concomitantly we claim that (a) (global) crisis phenomena can be understood as a component and result of socio-material processes; (b) they are expressed in (local) socio-material arrangements and practices; (c) it is via these arrangements that they can be analyzed. To do so, we ask how the relationship between global(crisis) phenomena, local socio-material arrangements and practices in kindergarten can be conceptualized and researched based on our ongoing long-term ethnographic research project. With a glimpse in the researched kindergartens, we can see that nature as a theme is a leitmotif guiding through the school year: Easter allows for the engagement with the theme of chicken and eggs, Christmas goes along with small festivities, involving special foods and decoration from nature, a sheep shearing event with the processing of wool etc. We identify strong socio-material aspects when observing everything related to “nature” in kindergarten. We can distinguish three overall modes in this relatedness: (1) a ‘profound-hypernaturalization’ in a city center kindergarten; (2) a ‘technologization/instrumentalization of nature in nature’ in a countryside kindergarten, and (3) a ‘humanized nature’ in a kindergarten on the outskirts of a city. Regarding these three different modes of integrating ‘nature’, we will reconstruct connections between these socio-material arrangements, practices and global (crisis-)phenomena such as the ecological crisis and its associated discourse. How are these connections shaped, and what do they mean to whom? We can assume two basic (contradictory) ways of relating one to the other: The socio-material arrangements are either used to produce a “wholesome” relation to nature which is discussed as one aspect of a good childhood, and which tends to conceal problematic aspects. Or they are used to raise awareness for the vulnerability of non-human life and ecosystems with the primary aim to protect nature from human action. In our talk, we want to lay out these fields of tension based on empirical insights.

Schatzki, T. R. (2002). The Site of the Social. Penn State University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780271023717 Schatzki, T. R. (2010). Materiality and Social Life. Nature and Culture, 5, 123–149. https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:144844080 Taylor, A. (2013). Reconfiguring the Natures of Childhood. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203582046 Taylor, A., & Pacini-Ketchabaw, V. (2018). The Common Worlds of Children and Animals. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315670010 Tilley, C. (2001). Ethnography and Material Culture. In P. Atkinson, A. Coffey, S. Delamont, J. Lofland, & L. Lofland (Eds.), Handbook of Ethnography (pp. 258–272). SAGE Publications Ltd. Tsing, A. L. (2015). Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Princeton University Press.

In the current age of poly-crisis, the youth welfare office is an institution that is charged with handling individual crises, while simultaneously adapting to external crises, such as pandemics, climate change and war-induced migration. Exploring this ambivalent position, this contribution asks how (pedagogical) organisations, such as the youth welfare office react to external crises and how crisis phenomena potentially affect the youth welfare office’s handling of individual crises? The handling of individual crises is institutionalized in youth welfare in Germany since the 1920s in the institution of the youth welfare office whose authority is particularly based on dealing with individual crises that can occur in the process of growing up. Throughout its history, it has been questioned whether it is a pedagogical authority but at the very least, however, it arose "from the idea of education" (Vogel 1960). Its invention goes back to the idea that children and young people have a right to education and that they are fundamentally educable (Müller 1994; Rätz 2018). Nowadays, the effectiveness of the youth welfare office as an organisation are additionally under pressure as many German youth welfare offices claim to be "in crisis" due to high staff turnover, cost pressure and outdated administrative methods. This complex demand of handling of individual crises while being in crisis itself is constantly challenged by external crises and calls to effectively adapt to them. The ethnographic fieldwork of my PhD project, which was carried out in two youth welfare offices during the corona pandemic in Germany, provides astonishing answers and insights. My research revealed which internal and external organisational crisis narratives existed and how they interacted. And my findings demonstrate that despite this context of having to adapt to external crises the existing institutional structures largely persisted as such, with only small measures of adjustment: Help plan meetings were held on greenfield sites, places in care were created in paediatric clinics to maintain day-to-day business. Therefore, my contribution shows that certain constellations of regulation and "safeguarding" of growing up do not inscribe the handling of external crises into their ‘machine room’ lightly. Instead, my findings indicate that in particular, authorities that are related to pedagogical processes remain persistent through a focus on administration (Biesel und Schrapper 2018, S. 426) and, hence, the dealing with crises is rather based on organizational measures than on pedagogical innovations.

Biesel, Kay; Schrapper, Christian (2018): Das Jugendamt der Zukunft. Zentrale für gelingendes Aufwachsen oder Kinderschutzamt? In: Michael Böwer und Jochem Kotthaus (Hg.): Praxisbuch Kinderschutz. Professionelle Herausforderungen bewältigen. Weinheim: Beltz Juventa, S. 422–448. Müller, Carl Wolfgang (1994): JugendAmt. Geschichte und Aufgaben einer reformpädagogischen Einrichtung. Weinheim: Beltz (Edition sozial, 2). Rätz, Regina (2018): Von der Fürsorge zur Dienstleistung. In: Karin Böllert (Hg.): Kompendium Kinder- und Jugendhilfe. Wiesbaden: Springer VS (SpringerLink Bücher), S. 65–92. Vogel, Martin Rudolf (1960): Das Jugendamt im gesellschaftlichen Wirkungszusammenhang. Ein Forschungsbericht: C. Heymann (Schriften des Deutschen Vereins für Öffentliche und Private Fürsorge, 215).

In a digitised world, understanding children’s well-being is increasingly complex as they play, engage and connect through digital play. Nurturing well-being is integral to humanity's hope for the future and requires attention and new knowledge about the impact of digital play experiences on children’s well-being. Through an international research collaboration, including case studies from, the United Kingdom, Cyprus, South Africa, and Australia we sought empirical evidence to answer the research question; how does digital play foster children’s well-being? This study is part of a larger study funded by the Lego Foundation and underpinned by the Responsible Innovation in Technology for Children (RITEC) (2021) child-centred framework. This framework identifies eight aspects of children’s well-being that digital play could potentially positively influence. Deep insights were gained from this study’s eco-culturally informed home visits and observations of participating children and families’ interaction around and with digital games over time.

The study adopted a range of qualitative methods, including in-person interviews and observations and family-led data generation and sharing, within a case study design. It was informed by ethnographic approaches and was semi-longitudinal. In total, 240 research visits were made to 50 families in the 4 countries, over a period of 14 months. Social network analysis methods, exploring why and how relationships were established and maintained in families where a digital game and device were introduced into the home, were conducted to better understand and map children’s play in a social context. Subsequently, deductive coding and thematic analysis of interview and video game playing transcripts, based on the elements of the RITEC framework, revealed some differences between countries in terms of how children interact socially during play sessions. However, in all countries, more social connections made by children during gameplay was associated with greater gains in well-being over time. Relations being understood as multifaceted and considered across the international case studies as social, material and temporal in nature. Social connection was identified as a key part of digital play for children. Digital play could provide a springboard for connecting with others as it was a way for children to both make new friends and spend time with important others. It is evident from the initial international cross-case that digital play can be a highly social activity, and children socialise both within and around the game play. There were a range of examples where digital play provided opportunities to collaborate, socialise, create, relate and connect with others. For some children, it provided opportunities to be part of gaming communities, both online and in person, which contributed to their social relationships, provided a sense of collective identity and a sense of belonging. At the same time, others played to take a break from social activities, giving them time and space to do things on their own.

Our panel discussion is a forum for the international partner investigators to share and provoke debate regarding how they observed and interpreted the influence of digital play on children’s well-being, focusing on social, material, and temporal relations. Some of the implications of significant geopolitical differences between the countries will be considered. Drawing from the various international case study families, converging evidence will be presented that suggests digital play can support children’s wellbeing by allowing them to meet specific psychological needs, including the need to connect with their peers and families. Social engagement through digital play can act as an important source of social connection for children who are constantly engaging with [more-than-human}, others as they negotiate social identity.

The project “Innovation Laboratory for Educational Spaces in Motion” reported on in this paper is being set up and operated by a team from the Vienna University of Technology in order to focus on the importance of the topic of spatiality in educational processes. In a broad-based three-year cooperation process (09/2021-09/2024), new models of creative thinking, action and design spaces are being created in Vienna's largest urban social housing area, the Per-Albin-Hansson housing estate. For this, three innovation labs (“School Lab”, “Neighbourhood Lab”, “Bus Lab”) were developed in a participatory manner, implemented and tested by several “innovation programmes”. By means of these intergenerational and multicultural space programmes, pupils from the surrounding schools and residents of all ages are invited to participate in the joint research and design process as experts on their neighbourhood and their everyday lives. The emerging synergies and specific spatial affordances are intended to serve as a model for planning practice in architecture as well as educational programmes.

As a member of the scientific advisory board I will give an insight into the scientific monitoring (cf. Schäfer-Walkmann 2018, 648; Luchte 2005, 189) of a specific aspect of this project: the work of architecture students with children and adolescents from the housing estate. The objective of this part of the project lies on two levels: 1. analysis of how young people engage with their spatial environment (school, neighbourhood, etc.) and 2. the acquisition of skills by architecture students in dealing with people for whom they may plan and build in the future after becoming professionals.

The second aspect, the professional development of architecture students through this special course, in which they are involved in innovation programmes, is particularly emphasised in the presentation. I will refer to two of the programmes in which the architecture students worked with children and teenagers who live and attend school in the Per-Albin-Hansson Housing estate: a) learning activities with pupils on the subject of "space" which took place in in a secondary school (“School Lab”), and b) the so called "Summer Cinema", which took place in a central public space of the neighbourhood (“Neighbourhood Lab”). The underlying research questions are: Which learning processes took place among the students of architecture according to project's aims? Which structures and framework conditions support or hinder the achievement of the objectives of the project? In what way do the innovation labs provide the basis for new developments?

Ad a) “School Lab”: Master's students of architecture at the Vienna University of Technology were (in cooperation with student teachers of a University College for Teacher Educatione) planning and realising activities with 10–14-year-old pupils. As part of their learning about school buildings through the direct collaboration with the “users” of a school they should make first hand experiences and raise awareness of the importance of "space as the third pedagogue".

Ad b) “Neighbourhood Lab”: The “Summer Cinema” took place in two vacant business premises in a small shopping centre in the centre of the housing estate that function as a work and project space for the project and are open to local residents. They form the spatial basis and creative platform for educationally relevant test settings and innovation programmes. Running a free cinema like this offered multidimensional experiences and insights about how the residents (young and old) appropriated the space. It quickly became apparent that the source of new learned knowledge was on the cinema as a collective, multidimensional event. So not only the space in front of the screen played a role, but also the spaces behind and next to the projected surfaces.

School improvement has been the focus of much research within literature from the global north, with researchers explicating the challenges that arise for school leaders seeking to further school improvement within centralised systems of educational governance (Bernhardt, 2017; Day, Sammons and Gorge, 2022; Leithwood, Harris and Hopkins, 2019). Much less research has been undertaken into the leadership of school improvement in new and emerging countries (Moroosi, 2019), with even fewer research insights specifically offered into school improvement in Bangladesh. Here, recent research identifies educational challenges related to insufficient funding (Sarker, Wu, and Hossin, 2019), class sizes (Milon, 2016), teacher training (Salahuddin, Khan, and Rahman, 2013) and the role of school managing committees in supporting school improvement initiatives (Sehrawat and Roy, 2021). Until now, little research attention has been paid to the role of the headteacher in Bangladesh in furthering school improvement. Thus, this presentation reports on an ethnographic study of the experiences of three Bangladeshi primary headteachers, working in government schools, as they sought to lead school improvement initiatives.

A newly independent country in 1971, Bangladesh has a population of 171 million and is the eighth most populous country in the world. Since the launch of the first primary education development plan in 1997, Bangladesh has evidenced an increasingly ‘strong track record’ of growth and development in its Primary education system (The World Bank, 2023). Four cycles of development planning have since been implemented to: strengthen school infrastructure; introduce curriculum textbooks; train teachers and school leaders; and establish systems of governance at the national, regional and local levels (Asian Development Bank, 2023). The third Primary Education Development Plan (Directorate of Primary Education, 2015) introduced the requirement for a School Learning Improvement Plan, which sought to increase school-level and community involvement in leadership of school improvement - a move towards a more decentralised model of school leadership (Mousumi and Kusakabe, 2021). It is in this context, with the improvement focus shifting towards local management of schools (and increasing responsibility for school improvement located with the headteacher), that this presentation offers insights into the experiences of the participant headteachers as they sought to navigate contested leadership spaces in pursuit of such improvement.

Educational ethnography was selected as the research methodology. This allowed the researcher to spend extended periods observing the actions and interactions of the headteachers and their stakeholders so as to ‘throw light on the issues’ (Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007, p.3) that were the focus of inquiry. Thus, the research questions to be addressed in this presentation are:

• What are the challenges and opportunities for Bangladeshi headteachers regarding accountability and stakeholder engagement when involved in school improvement related activities?
• How do headteachers navigate contested leadership spaces when seeking to lead school improvement initiatives?

In response to the first question, data were thematically analysed drawing out the challenges and opportunities related to headteacher leadership of school improvement. Foucauldian theory (Foucault, 1982) informed data analysis in relation to the second research question, shedding light on how these school leaders navigated contested leadership spaces in pursuit of locally managed school improvement initiatives.